


Kanmusu of Two Worlds

by plumeraccoon



Category: High School Fleet | Haifuri (Anime), 艦隊これくしょん | Kantai Collection
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-01-01 10:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18334013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumeraccoon/pseuds/plumeraccoon
Summary: Original story by Razgriz89, edited and reworked by plumeraccoon (with permission). Tags to be updated with each chapter. Joint project to promote the upcoming spin-off sequel.Akeno and Fubuki disappear from their respective universes after crossing a mysterious fog. They find their roles switched. With Fubuki as the captain of the Harekaze and Akeno a Harekaze kanmusu, both must fight their own battles to save both worlds from their worst. Major revisions from the original upload from FanFiction.net but story remains the same.





	1. Into The Abyss

**SEPTEMBER 19, 8:28 a.m.**

**68 km northeast of Tori-shima**

**Y-467 Harekaze, Kagerou-class destroyer, training**

**Conducting SAR for missing cruise ship “Regal Ocean”**

* * *

 

The bridge of a lone destroyer, the Harekaze, can make out the jagged silhouette of Tori-shima’s distant volcano from the distance, not minding the rough waves pounding its bow. Shrugging off the waves, it sails close enough to the island for a flight of seagulls to fly overhead. Clear skies tempt the crew into enjoying a day under the sun.

But the stoicism among the crew has made their course clear. Somewhere in the expanse of the Pacific, thousands of li **v** es are counting on patrols sent out by mainland Japan. The crew’s reason for turning down the offer of rest and relaxation crackles over the radio, repeating for the umpteenth time but never growing old.

PRIORITY-ALPHA TRANSMISSION, BLUE MERMAIDS CENTRAL COMMAND “ATLANTIS.” ON SEPTEMBER 18, 2248H, LOST CONTACT WITH CRUISE SHIP “REGAL OCEAN.” VESSEL WAS EN ROUTE TO YOKOSUKA WITH 2,087 PASSENGERS AND CREW. ATTEMPTS TO REESTABLISH CONTACT IN THE FIRST SIX HOURS FAILED. ALL BLUE MERMAIDS UNITS PLACED ON READINESS LEVEL TWO AND CONDUCTING SAR WITHIN 400-NAUTICAL MILE A.O. OF IZU ISLANDS. “ATLANTIS” REQUESTING COOPERATION OF STUDENT SHIPS WITHIN A.O. TO ASSIST IN SEARCH.

Akeno’s grip on her binoculars tightens as she scans the horizon with it. The wound she had long thought closed, the tragedy that took her parents away, has opened again. Now, leading a battle-hardened crew, she must keep her focus.

“Report,” Akeno makes a call from the bridge.

Three reports come in almost in a whim, one followed by the other like an orderly line to the school cafeteria at lunch time. But all are false hopes.

“No contacts on radar,” first from Megumi, the radar operator.

“No unknown objects underwater,” second from Kaede and her sonar.

“All clear from the watch,” last from Noma, the fearless lookout from the mast.

“Thank you, everyone,” Akeno puts her binoculars aside, no longer shaken. “Please continue to keep an eye out. Saving those people takes top priority.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” the three crewmembers answered at once.

Today’s mission: find the cruise ship Regal Ocean and relay it to Atlantis for a decisive response. The ship barely pulled off a rescue of more than 500 people from a ship that ran aground. What more with four times as many victims? No heroics this time, Deputy-captain Mashiro reminded Akeno before leaving port. The Harekaze already has too much of its fair share of recklessness.

“Just when we finally get to do some practical exercises, _this_ happens,” Mashiro sighed. “It’s as if trouble just won’t leave us alone.”

“I know we’re not yet trained for this,” Akeno replied. “But we have to do our part. Thinking about those poor folks aboard…”

“We’ve been scouring this area for a while now. This was the Regal Ocean’s last known location. Could it possibly have…?”

“No! No! No!” Akeno shakes her head in denial. “Don’t say what I think you’re going to say, Shiro-chan!”

“But I’m just considering the worst-case—”

“Please don’t. I’m sure they’re still alive.”

“How can you be sure? We’ve been looking at nothing but water for hours.”

Akeno doesn’t. Not a soul in the Harekaze does. Her silence only proves her deputy’s point.

“Please try to understand, Captain,” Mashiro added. “Sometimes, you have to swallow a bitter pill. We’ll keep looking, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

The captain’s distraught look, however, wants no bitter pill to swallow. She prefers sweet stuff like cakes, classmates, and eating cakes with classmates. In her heart, she prefers not taking part in an operation that might relive her trauma of years past. She can choose to do so, if not for the fact that such behavior doesn’t fit the image of an aspiring Blue Mermaid.

Akeno gets back to her binoculars again without saying a word. But anyone paying attention a while ago knows that Mashiro’s words are the cruel reality.

After an eternity of nothing, the Harekaze finds its first clue. As signal officer Tsugumi realized, ears are just as useful in finding missing ships as eyes. “Captain, I’m picking up an unusual signal close to our location.”

“Is it from the Regal Ocean?” asked Akeno.

“I’m not sure,” Tsugumi, in charge of communications, replied. “It’s not coming from Tori-shima. It also doesn’t seem from any ship in the area. But it’s close.”

“Can you determine its exact location?”

“I’ll need time, Captain. The signal’s really weak.”

“Take your time. We’re counting on you.”

Answering an unknown caller? The ever-cautious Mashiro expresses her doubts. “Should we really be following that? It could be dangerous.”

“Anything’s better than nothing,” Akeno argued.

**~O~**

The anonymous signal leads the Harekaze away from Tori-shima, through more turbulent waves. The search now relies on Tsugumi’s ears, on the prowl for the slightest drop in the signal’s tone. The path the signal carves has the ship snap left and right, reacting as the tone prompts them. In the ship’s wake is an accurate portrayal of life with its twists and turns.

After much twisting and turning, the Harekaze hopes to find the answer inside a dense fog ahead. Mashiro’s sarcasm—a rarity—kicks in. “Of course, a fog. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“We’re about to enter a fog,” Akeno said. “Prepare for low-visibility navigation. Rin-chan, maintain speed and bearing.”

Like a spear denying its target of protection, the Harekaze pierces through the fog. The helmsman, Rin, keeps the wheel as steady as her wits through the blinding abyss. With state-of-the-art navigation loaded onto an old destroyer, sea fog is generally nothing to fear.

Except that this fog seems to possesses a mind of its own, clouding the entire bridge. The girls find themselves unable to see an inch in front of them. Their panicked shrieks reverberate to the rest of their classmates below deck.

“Ah, ah, I can’t see!” cried Rin.

“What’s with this fog?” yelled Mashiro.

Akeno rallies her crew, but the chaos persists. “Everyone, stay where you are! You might bump into someone!”  Rin’s sobbing adds to the panic. “I hope not with a ship!”

“Tama, talk to me!” said Mei, the energetic torpedo officer.

“Aye,” the soft-spoken gunnery officer Tama responded.

“No good, I can’t even see—”Mayumi, the Harekaze’s eyes at starboard, feels her eyes poked by the scope unseen to her. “Ow! My eyes!”

“Calm down, everyone!” Akeno called once more. “We’ll be out of this—kyah!”

“Captain?”

“I wonder what’s for dinner.”

“How can you think about food?”

“Curry!”“This is no time to be thinking about curry! And it’s not even Friday!”

The award for “Best Comment Made While in Blinding Fog,” however, goes to the dialogue between ship secretary Kouko and her boundless imagination.

“Curses! The Harekaze has found our secret self-aware fog project!” “We must never let them get away! Take away their eyes!” “We did it! Now no one shall know of our plans to take over the world!” “They and their children—and their children’s children—shall be forever blind! Mwahahaha!”

“Take this seriously!” yelled an irate Mashiro.

Finally, the ship breaks out of the other side into clear skies. The deputy captain lets out a sigh of relief, thankful that the fog didn’t claim her eyes. “Everyone still has their eyes?” Collective ayes fill the bridge in near unison.  “Looks like everyone’s eyes are accounted for, Cap—”

Her words stop upon seeing a different person in place. Nobody recalls Akeno having black hair and wearing a blue-white sailor uniform. And the way she looks at the people around her only makes this close encounter awkward.

“Er…who are you?”

“Um…I’m Fubuki…”


	2. The Unknown Kagerou (2-Akeno)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters marked with Akeno's name are part of her adventures as a kanmusu in the Kancolle universe. Events here are almost simultaneous with events in the Haifuri universe.

**DAY 1, 0938 hours**

**Off the coast of Truk Island**

**No. 467 Harekaze, Kagerou-class destroyer, kanmusu**

**Abyssal carrier battle group assaulting forward base**

* * *

 

Akeno wakes up to the buzz of piston engines overhead, greeted by the sight of bursts of flame and streaks of tracer fire. Her school uniform provides little protection from the icy winds. A turbulent sea stretches beyond the ensuing battle from afar, forming a troublesome pair with rain-heavy clouds.

“Where…where am I?” Akeno looks around, only to see more water. Save for the distant battle, all seem as normal as any bad weather can be. She recalls being at sea, but perhaps not this close to the water. To her surprise, she notices some clunky gear strapped to her hands. “Huh? What is this?” she sees more of the gear on her back and the waist down.

The largest piece is strapped on her back no tighter than a backpack, not too hard to remove. But at her first attempt, the sheer weight surprised her. Why can she carry a huge rig when she can’t lift it off her back? She goes for the next best thing: the pair of water skis keeping her afloat.

A sudden, distant voice tells her that it’s a bad idea. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

Akeno turns to a green-haired girl also wearing some rigging, albeit a bit larger and different. Her words are lost in the confusion of the moment. “I, well…um, you see…”

“Taking off your rigging in the middle of the ocean? What are you thinking?”

“My rigging?”

“You’ll drown if you don’t have that when you’re out at sea.”

“W-Wait, I…I don’t understand—”

The ominous whistle of freefalling bombs interrupts the exchange. To the girls’ relief, the bombs only make harmless columns of water from a distance, but the buzzing of jet black aircraft above alarms them. The girl grabs Akeno’s hand and leads a mad dash for safety. “Come on! We have to meet up with the others!”

Despite their best efforts to get away, the hostile aircraft catches up to them with ease. In a steep dive, the aircraft scores cannon hits on both kanmusu before buzzing past them.

“This is bad,” the girl watches the aircraft fly back for another strafing run. “We can’t outrun them. We’ll have to fight them right here.”

“Fight? H-How?”

“With our guns! What else?”

“Our guns?”

The girl shows her pair, fitting nicely on both sides of her rigging, and starts filling the air with flak. As soon as Akeno looks at hers, a glaring similarity hits her. “This is…the Harekaze’s old main gun?”

“Beats me,” the girl continues firing away. “But if you don’t start firing, we’ll be history.”

Following the girl’s example, Akeno opens fire on the marauding aircraft.  Their combined wall of fire succeeds in taking down several of their attackers, only to realize that for one they bring down two more take its place. Firing from a single spot only gave the aircraft a fixed target for their bombs. It’s only a matter of time before the columns of water become a direct hit for one _lucky_ kanmusu.

“Argh! There’s no end to them!” the girl, her clothes and rigging in terrible shape, slowly falters in her anti-air screen.

Accurate fire goes out the window for Akeno. The constant shifting from one front to the next puts a strain on her arms. Never the consummate athlete, she misses a shot fired in desperation against a diving aircraft. Two bombs under its wing now loom close to the killing blow.

She can only look on in horror as one of the bombs leave its pylon, seconds before gunfire from out of the blue destroy both bomb and plane. The resulting fireball breaks up the vultures circling around them. She catches a glimpse of white piston-engine aircraft buzzing past her, the fireball radiating their red decals.

Heavier-than-air flight. This world teems with the knowledge of flying. In her world, such an idea may as well dismiss her as insane.

Then, from a break in the clouds, more of the white aircraft descended upon the vultures. “More of them?” said Akeno.

“Don’t worry,” the girl replied. “The white planes are on our side.”

More of the girl’s companions arrived, all carrying unique riggings. One of them even carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. “Thank you for your support, Yuubari-san.”

“Akagi-senpai, are we glad to see you,” replied Yuubari.

“We’re pushing the enemy back from the main front. We’re tasked with flanking them in a hammer-and-anvil maneuver.”

“Leave it to the Admiral to come up with the _craziest_ strategies.”

“Can you still fight? You seem to be in bad shape.”

“We took some fire but no bomb hits. We’re still good to go.”

As Akeno observes the meeting, the group’s eyes eventually turn to her—a kanmusu they’ve never met before. “Let me introduce you,” Yuubari started. “I’m the light cruiser Yuubari. Here are my fellow kanmusu: carrier Akagi, light cruisers Kitakami and Ooi—”

“That’s _torpedo_ cruisers to you,” Ooi retorted.

“ _Torpedo_ cruisers Kitakami and Ooi,” a slightly annoyed Yuubari rolls her eyes. “And destroyers Shimakaze and Kagerou.”

“Um, it’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’m Akeno Misaki, captain of the Harekaze.”

“Harekaze?” Out of respect for personal space, Yuubari takes a closer look at Akeno’s rigging. “Now that I got a closer look, your rigging looks similar to Kagerou’s. Are you two sisters?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kagerou answered. “I don’t have a sister named Harekaze. Her uniform’s not even the same as mine.”

“Yuubari-san, where did you find her?” Akagi asked.

“She was all alone trying to take off her rigging,” Yuubari explained. “After meeting up, the Abyssals came out of nowhere and attacked us. My first impression was she might be fresh out of Kanmusu School.”

“Not even novice kanmusu would ever think about that,” Kagerou replied.

“Well, this is the worst time to be alone,” Kitakami remarked. “Oh, who am I kidding? _Any_ operation is the worst time to be alone.”

And leave it to Ooi to complete the one-two punch line, complete with arm grabbing. “Fret not, Kitakami-san! I won’t let you go on an operation alone!”

A whole new world unfolds before the marooned captain. She now wears the culture of the kanmusu, ships in the form of people that sail and sink just the same. But in the chaos of a fierce naval battle, the group will have to ponder on this mystery at a later time. More of the black aircraft come to avenge their fallen, this time with Abyssals of various forms rushing to meet them.

“We’ll have to save the pleasantries for another time,” said Akagi. “For now, prepare for battle!”

**~O~**

Akeno knows how to command a ship, but the world she was in right now requires her to _be_ a ship. As per Akagi’s advice, she watches from a safe distance but no less wary. The kanmusu’s human bodies operate the weapons, down to firing the right type of shell, as well as the skis that allow them to move with grace on the water. It’s a sight to behold, along with the realization that this is no longer her world. The fate that may have befallen her classmates on the ship is no one’s guess.

The skirmish ends with the Abyssals badly mauled and in full retreat. From a large battle group that had the element of surprise, only a handful of destroyers escape certain death. The carriers, the greatest threat to the kanmusu, have all been sent to the bottom where they belong. Cheering can be heard among the victorious, happy to both have repelled the attack and survived to tell the tale.

A handful, however, don’t feel like celebrating. Among them is a distraught Mutsuki, who hurries to Akagi to ask: “Akagi-senpai, have you seen Fubuki-chan?”

“Wasn’t she part of the main front?” Akagi replied.

“We were beside each other when we fought the Abyssals. I turned around for a second to engage a destroyer, and after that she was gone.”

Akeno feels the gravity of the situation, even if not knowing who Fubuki is. She and the rest are unaware that Fubuki has been whisked away to another world, perhaps Akeno’s. For them, the only explanation for a missing kanmusu is that she has returned to the sea like the countless fallen.

Akagi’s heart sank. “She couldn’t have…”

“Fubuki-chan…” Mutsuki followed.

The probable fate of a fellow kanmusu hit them hard enough for a shadowy figure underwater to get within range undetected. Two streaks of bubbles flew out from it, no doubt torpedoes on a collision course with a grieving Akagi.

The alert screams inside Akeno’s head and springs in between the carrier and the threat. “LOOK OUT!”

The shocked carrier and her planes have been saved, but at what cost?


	3. A Test of Trust (2-Fubuki)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters marked with Fubuki's name are part of her adventures as a normal human in the Haifuri universe. Events here are almost simultaneous with events in the Kancolle universe.

**SEPTEMBER 19, 11:47 a.m.**

**233 km south of Aogashima**

**Y-467 Harekaze, Kagerou-class destroyer, training**

**Captain Akeno Misaki currently missing in action**

* * *

The crew of the skipper-less Harekaze now has two things to look for: the missing cruise ship and their lucky charm of a captain. Leaving no nook and cranny unsearched, the girls even look into empty pots and engine tubes, as well as places too small even for Isoroku to hide in.

Here’s a little gem from the engine room, where Maron sticks her head inside a panel, much to Kuroki’s frustration. “What makes you think the Captain would be in there?” asked Kuroki.

“Expect the unexpected, Kuro-chan!” Maron replied loud and proud. “That’s how you live life!”

“No, that’s not how it works. And get your head out of there.”

Then, an exclamation from the eccentric chief engineer: “Aha!”

“What is it, Maron?”

“Jackpot! Someone left 1,000 yen in here!”

“Stop goofing off and _focus_!”

Not only does the search turn out to be in vain, the nature of Akeno’s disappearance adds insult to injury. The two fast craft accounted for aboard means that she never left the ship. It would’ve also been foolhardy to dive into the ocean, especially into foggy waters (unless a conspiring submarine was lying in wait, according to Kouko, which Mashiro instantly shot down).

Tsugumi gets the unfortunate job of breaking the bad news to the bridge an hour later. “We’ve looked from bow to stern. The Captain’s really gone!”

“It’s as if she never boarded the ship in the first place,” Kouko commented.

Despite her distaste, Mashiro turns to the one person who might know. “Listen, whoever you are,” she snarls at Fubuki, the ship’s unexpected guest. “I don’t know who you are or where in the Pacific you came from. And I honestly don’t care. Where’s our captain?”

“I’m telling the truth. I really don’t know,” replied a frantic Fubuki. “I remember being in the middle of a sortie and—”

“A sortie? Are you a Blue Mermaid?”

“Blue…Mermaid?”

“She’s a bit too young to be a Blue Mermaid, don’t you think?” Mei remarked.

Everyone’s mixed glances put pressure on Fubuki as would two slices of bread on fruit jam. Their eyes will have to do in keeping her from doing anything stupid.

Fortunately, she has at least Rin on her side. “Maybe Fubuki-san’s telling the truth.”

“Shiretoko-san, whose side are you on?” Mashiro retorted.

Rin cowers behind the helm, like she often does, but continues speaking her mind out. “Without the Captain, there’s nothing we can do but trust her.” Such remarks are slow to set in, but the resulting silence gives Fubuki much-needed breathing space.

“At least let’s make her feel at home,” Kouko said. “The Captain would do the same thing.”

The deputy captain simply sighed, after which the entire ship shudders under the tremor of cannon fire. “W-What’s happening?”

“Deputy Captain, you may want to take a look at this,” Machiko tells the bridge from her station.

**~O~**

Columns of water bracket the Harekaze inside a prison of water. The haunting echoes of more cannon fire ripple across the air, no doubt heading for the ship. Amidst the most unprecedented situation, the skipper-less Harekaze has been dragged into battle once more.

The fight, however, isn’t ship against ship, classmate against classmate, as it has been the case with a virus outbreak. Off the ship’s bow, jet black monstrosities unleash fire and fury from their left arms. Their shots inch closer to the Harekaze and the deadly fate that awaits it. One can only wonder the faces of terror wishing the Harekaze’s demise, hiding behind their masks and flaming eyes.

Mashiro can barely hold onto her binoculars in the face of such hostility. Her fear soon spreads among the rest of the crew. “What are those things? Why are they firing at us?”

“Can I take a look?” Fubuki walks up to the deputy captain, who lends her the binoculars without a second thought. The identity of their enemies soon becomes clear from a distance.“Two Chi-class torpedo cruisers…one hit from their torpedoes and we’re done for.”

“Torpedo cruisers?” replied Mashiro in disbelief. “You mean to tell me that those things are ships?”

“In our world, we call them Abyssals,” Fubuki explained. “They rise from the ocean depths to wage war against humanity.”

“That’s absurd! I’ve never heard of Abyssals before. They aren’t even human.”

The shower of gunfire hardly relents, some of which land glancing blows against the Harekaze’s thin armor. The frantic cries from damage control echo across the ship. “Storehouse four is on fire! Extinguishing now!”

Another shot finds its mark near one of the torpedo tubes. In a violent eruption, the ship is deprived of kind of firepower it needs the most right now. “Torpedo Tube Two just took a direct hit!”

“Kayo-chan, are you okay?!” a panicking Mei called out from the bridge.

“I’m okay,” Kayoko responds almost right away, to Mei’s relief.

“Get out of there.

“Hard left rudder! Get us out of their kill zone!” Mashiro snapped.

Rin frantically turns the wheel left. The Harekaze responds smartly, narrowly escaping a new wave of direct hits. Regardless, the enemy cruisers give chase, turning with the Harekaze to continue the attack.

“All batteries port broadside! FIRE!”

The undamaged five-inch main batteries turn to face the threat, returning the favor with salvos of their own. No doubt that Tama’s uncanny precision translates to direct hits. The enemy cruisers would’ve been no different, if not for the red shield that blunts the Harekaze’s attack.

“No way!” Mei exclaimed. “The cannons didn’t even make a dent!” Even Tama reels from the realization of the opponent’s strength.

At this point, Fubuki has heard enough. To the bridge’s surprise, she runs to the side of the ship and climbs over the barrier. Mayumi grabs her hand in the nick of time. “Wait! What are you going to do?”

“I have to stop them,” Fubuki replied. “I’ll distract them while you use the chance to escape.”

“Don’t be stupid!” Mashiro catches up with her. “What can you do against them?”

“We’re the only ones that can stop them,” Fubuki’s stern look reminds the dumbfounded crew of the time a certain soul braved artillery fire to rescue comrades at sea. For a time amidst the chaos, the captain’s image appears in their guest.

Awestruck, Mayumi lets go of Fubuki who leaves a smile before jumping into the water. The encounter may have been brief, but they’ve begun warming up to their guest.

“What do you think she’s gonna do?” Mayumi asked.

“I don’t know,” Mashiro answered. “But if she and those things came from another world, she would do something about it.”

Mashiro and the others hurry back to their stations, only for the lookout to deliver an ominous report. “Someone just went overboard! She’s drowning!”

“What?!” exclaimed the bridge crew in disbelief.

Take away a kanmusu’s rigging and she ends up like any ordinary human overboard.


	4. Rewards and Penalties (3-Akeno)

Click, click, click, click…

Click goes the passing seconds and minutes in an eerie echo. Soothing warmth circles around a space of nothingness, as if all but the head dipped in hot water. The seldom sound of drips and a deer chaser at work set the tranquil setting. Is the afterlife a well-deserved hot bath after having led a warrior’s life? If yes, then the afterlife may not be a bad place to retire.

But this is no afterlife. It takes place in a real hot bath. And the story is far from its climax.

The sounds may have no deer to chase away, but they serve another purpose: a wake-up call for Akeno. Her eyes open to a picturesque view of the sea, a safe haven for calm waves once more. From her little pool of healing water, she bears witness to the beauty of this alternate world.

Later, she finds the source of the incessant clicking: an analog timer above her head. One hour. She has to stay there for one more hour.

“Slept well?” the white-haired girl next to her amuses herself by popping bubble wrap.

Akeno almost jumps out of the bath in shock. Had it been a stranger, she wouldn’t have engaged in dialogue. “Wait, you’re from the Graf Spee.”

“Thea Kreutzer, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I took a few bombs in today’s sortie. I can’t sortie for a while.”

Not the answer Akeno expects, but she plays along. “How long?”

Without missing a beat on her bubble wrap, Thea points to her clock. She may as well enjoy every second of the entertainment she can get.

“Twenty-six?! Was it that bad?”

“It could’ve been worse had they hit me on my weak spot. I would’ve sunk.”

The new world still proves too big for Akeno to swallow. But with a familiar face also in the same situation, she feels more secure.

“It’s been three days since I came here. You’ll get the hang of it,” Thea said.

Another kanmusu joins them, carrying two green buckets with the liquid to match. “Looks like you’re up and about, Harekaze-chan. You really scared us back there.”

Akeno needs not to be reminded of her readiness to protect her comrades, even at the cost of her life. That much is as clear as the sea in front of her. “I’m sorry. I just…”

“Ooyodo-san, what are those?” Thea points to the buckets.

“Instant repair buckets,” Ooyodo smiled. “The Admiral asked me to bring them to you.”

“Instant repair buckets?” replied a clueless Akeno. At this point, she may as well be clueless about everything in this world.

“You’ll see,” Ooyodo readies to pour one bucket for Thea. “Now, this might feel a bit funny…”

The term “instant repair” can't be any more blatant; it will save them the trouble of waiting to fully recover from their injuries. But the two girls don’t count on the water turning a shade of green, not to mention the stimulation that comes with it.

“Ah…” Thea held back her cry of relief, although her flushed face can’t be put away.

Akeno, on the other hand, has no issues showing the world how “refreshed” she feels after the bucket dose. Her loud “Ahhhhhhhh!” probably stretches from her Yokosuka to Asuncion. The timers counting the seconds trickle down to zero almost instantly. No longer will they have to stay for hours, away from the action.

Seriously, KanColle, what’s in that stuff?

“I take it you girls feel better now?” Ooyodo giggles at the flustered girls, who simply nod. “Good. We don’t have a lot of these, so take care.”

Thea raises her hand. “The fact that you had to go through all this trouble means something’s up.”

“Sharp as ever, Spee-chan,” Ooyodo giggled. “Secretary Ship Nagato wants to see you both right away.”

**~O~**

All across the island, every kanmusu who can still hold a tool for hours of work hurries to patch every shell crater and hole. The fortress of steel, denying the Abyssals of a foothold in this part of the world, stands as robust as its purpose despite the damage. For the most part, it shrugs off the insults the Abyssals have thrown in anger. The seas around Truk Island remain in the hands of humanity for now.

From a posh office overlooking the sea, Nagato observes the calm after the storm. The battle is won, but her stoic face tells a different story. Perhaps this is how she sees any operation against the dreaded enemies of humanity. She can’t afford to get too confident of a victory in the dawn horizon unless she sees the head of the snake cut off. Experience tells her that such rashness is a good way to lose battles.

None of that matters today, as Thea and Akeno are about to find out. They enter the office with Ooyodo, who then proceeds to a corner with pen and clipboard on hand. Nagato’s stoicism convinces Akeno, shaking from the waist down, to be on the receiving end of any reprimand. Thea, on the other hand, responds with her own brand of stoicism, careful not to use too much of it.

Nagato’s gaze darts between the two new kanmusu. “Destroyer Harekaze and battlecruiser Graf Spee, I presume. It’s good to finally meet you two. I am Secretary Ship Nagato, commanding all operations in the Admiral’s stead.”

“Admiral?” Akeno replied.

“Regrettably, the Admiral had to return to the Naval District for an important matter. He wanted to meet you two.”

“He did?”

Nagato picks up the documents on the table and begins browsing them. “I’ve heard from Yuubari and the others. They say that you two appeared in this world all of a sudden. Care to explain?”

“We aren’t. We suddenly found ourselves in this world after passing through some fog.”

“A fog?”

“I can attest to that, Secretary Ship Nagato,” Thea replied. “However, I came here three days ahead of Harekaze. I stumbled into a battle and fought alongside Kongou-san’s unit.”

“Nagato-san, we mean no harm,” Akeno continued. “We just want to get back to our world…to our friends.”

Ooyodo scribbles the minutes of this closed-door meeting in silence. Regardless of what she feels, she has little say on the matter as long as Nagato is talking.

“Two of our kanmusu have disappeared over the course of three days,” Nagato continued. “And you two suddenly appear in the middle of our battles. Tell me, do you people really mean no harm?”

The words pierced through Akeno cleaner than an armor-piercing shell. “We really do! We don’t even know how we got here.”

“Then I…no, we want answers. Where have the two missing kanmusu gone?”

“We…we don’t know.”

“Then don’t expect to earn our trust right away. You have been warned.”


End file.
